🇸🇦🇾🇪Saudi Arabia/Yemen’s Taiz Crisis @HothaAli, Friday 3pm ET/10pm KSA

law of human rights of, you know, law of war. They have committed war crimes. We see just lately, just recently, they have attacked the main international airport in Riyadh, killed hundreds of people. They attacked all the airports in the southern part of Saudi Arabia. Today, just today, they have attacked the airport in the eastern part in Demam, killed two people, many wounded. And inside of Yemen, they have attacked all of the airports in the south, killed many wounded many. And you have to understand there's a difference, all civilian tragedy and all civilian deaths are a problem. But we must distinguish the difference between civilians dying from collateral damage and civilians being the intentional main target of the killings. This is very different. This is, you are now dealing with a terrorist, criminal organization that are taking human beings and civilian hostages. And the country of Yemen and the North part of Yemen are hostages now. They have now used children as children's soldiers, most of the soldiers that are captured and prisoners of war from the Houthis side are in fact children, some as young as 10 years old, 11 years old. And this is going to be the biggest point of discussion that we're going to talk about today. The KSA relief, which by the way is not sponsoring this space, we, me and love, in fact it was the idea of love, so thank you, to kind of give light to the KSA relief, which has been giving humanitarian aid to Yemeni people and children and actually creating a rehabilitation program for captured children's soldiers. And again, nobody told us to do this. This was something that we wanted to do to kind of shed light on the works that has been done. So thank you, love for suggesting this. And again, I will excuse me one second, that's the Houthis. I will post an official link in the net. There is only, we are only encouraged to donate directly to the foundation. They do have a late forced Saudi and one for America. You can go to their website directly. Dr. Houthen, I don't handle any money. We're not involved with any of the money. We're just encouraging the conversation and facilitating the conversation to bring awareness about what's actually going on in the TIE's and what's going on with the Yemeni children and the crisis, which has been one of the longest humanitarian crises in modern history. It's over 10 years now. So I'll make the link in the top. Yeah. And to be clear, the KSA relief hasn't really asked anybody to donate. It's just that they do have a link for people that want to really help and don't know what are the proper channels. This is the proper channel. Again, it is the main humanitarian aid donor in Yemen. But what we want to talk about mainly is the abuse and use of child soldiers in Yemen. Children, as young as 12 and 13, if you know Arabic, and you know, know what they're saying, it's very heartbreaking. And the KSA relief, again, is doing this child rehabilitation program for these soldiers. So we're going to talk about some of these pointers. We're going to say hi to our guests here. Alan, thank you for coming to the space. We have Habit, Abu Ahmed, Joe Stevens, and of course, Zaid. Zaid, tell us a little bit about the crisis with the children's soldiers. How serious is this? Thank you, Dr. And thank you, love, and everybody. And I appreciate the opportunity for the Yemeni voice to be in discussion. A lot of times, a lot of people in a lot of countries they speak on our behalf. And our voices is absent. And even though the discussion is about us, and I appreciate that, Dr. Hassan, I appreciate anybody who works to allow Yemenis to be heard. As for the crisis, first of all, adding to what you say, this militia has stole our identity. Yemenis throughout history are not outlaws. We're not pirates. We do not, we're not terrorists. We don't terrorize our neighbors. We don't use children as a mean to advance a political cause. This is not who we are. This is not the Islam that we grew up learning. And I think once militia take a land, we could take it back. But once it takes away people identity, here I am in New York, I have a business. And just because people watch the TV and look at the media and the identity that's been set in hijack is that Houthis or militias go after ships in the seas or go after neighbors. And I'm paying for that. I'm yelling and the overwhelming majorities of Yemenis are yelling. And we're crying. This is not who we are. So that's the biggest element last here is the identity that's being hijacked by these people who are a minority, who uses every anyway and every way to advance their cause who are a proxy for a much bigger terrorist group. Now speaking of Taz, to understand the catastrophe and understand the whole issue in what is at stake here, Taz is the province that produced most of the Yemen intellectuals. Taz is where doctors come from. Taz is where engineers are from. Taz is where most of the thriving companies, Taz is where I and every Taz is where the literature is where it's where the hope for Yemenis, Taz was the example of all cities. Taz in not long ago was the capital of Atakafa, the literature capital of Yemen. So in this Malaysia that came from the dark ages, that returned Yemen to the dark ages yesterday, and during this latest attack, they went into the Al-Hujeriyah County. And the Al-Hujeriyah County is probably the most advanced county in Yemen. This is where most of Yemenis who are in politics, who are even serving universities around the world, not just inside of Yemen. And they appointed a person from Sa'dah who does not read. I want this to sink in. There is inter-clear cut conflict where right versus one exist like it does in Taz. The county or the group of counties in the capital. The city that is currently under siege and under bombardment and under blockade from the Houthis right now as we speak. That's why Zaid is particularly talking about Taz. Sorry Zaid, go ahead. Yes, it's the whole of Yemenis hijacked. But right now we're speaking about Taz because it's the last beating in our body. This is our hope. This is the city that ultimately will take us to where we want to go. And where we want to go is a country that has a system, that system that everybody can live under. And that's why it's particularly of importance for us Yemenis. And also right now is under siege and it has been under siege. And sadly, sadly, and this is where a lot of people here probably could help. The international community has its looked upon in Yemen as aiding the militia. Taz was part of the Stockholm where relieving the pain of the city was part of the deal. Can you explain to everybody what the Stockholm deal was and why it's so bad? Go ahead. I think it's 2018. The legitimate government was about to take over the port of Al-Hudayde. And as you know, as is often does the UN and its NGOs came and sold to the rest of the world that this is wrong, shouldn't happen, is going to hurt all of Yemenis. And a deal was struck because the legitimate government, which has history. We have a history of dealing with this militia. You know, this is not the first time we did deals with them and they go back on it. And when the international community to understand the nature of this militia, we did the Stockholm. But part of the deal, which kept the legitimate government forces from entering the city, is to relieve the pain of taz. But that never happened. Yeah, I wanted to say the other way around. That never happened. You see, the problem, but by the way, I just want to make it simple for everyone. In 2018, when the official Yemeni government and the Saudi coalition or the pro-Saudi pro-Official Yemeni government coalition got the Hussi's cornered in a corner. And they were about to be ended. And that's when the UN and the international community, and, you know, the threat to sanction and basically pressured the coalition to stop and let them breathe. And that is actually what gave them the life that they have today. And they used that life to, again, hijack the rest of Yemen, threaten Yemenis and put them in a bad situation. And it's a very, very, very, very, very disgusting situation. Now while taz is under blockade from those very same people that were cornered just eight years ago, and were given, you know, room to breathe by the international community, they now are blockading, seizing and committing crimes in taz and not only taz in all of Yemen. Just yesterday and a few days ago, they sent ballistic missiles into civilian airports. My problem here is that war is bad. We all agree that war is bad. Collateral damage happens. These people are not a normal military. These people are criminals. They target civilians. They don't target enemy storages that has, you know, collateral damage where civilians might die. No, no, no. They target the civilians themselves just today in a city called the Abiyah or maybe other something like that which is close to the fauna. You can correct me if I pronounce it wrong. They destroyed the home of like the chief elder of a prominent tribe there just to punish him because he was against the hosties. And these people are, their attacks are not on military. Their attacks are on civilians, whether it's airports in Saudi Arabia or in Yemen. And it's disgusting. One part what I really want to talk about which is very sad is how they were able to indoctrinate these children. And this is actually, you know, one of the main subjects we want to talk about. And you know, I studied about this before this space. I wanted to understand how they were able to do it. And I found this interview documentary with a father that had a child that was indoctrinated and went, you know, basically that became part of that conspiracy army. His child was, you know, he came back and he was rehabilitated and he's okay now. But listening to the story, how they were able to brainwash his child, it began basically with, you know, bringing the children that are in a neighborhood into one, like, house. They would give them like the dagger and give them like an AK-47. Let them watch, you know, like these fighting videos of previous, you know, war, you know, videos, give them gatt and give them a lot of gatt. And then they would give them a job. And the job would be you would be the police and security of say certain neighborhood. So these children are given a dagger, a gun, given a purpose to be like this police force and drugs and given like, you know, a purpose to be. And after a while, when they feel settled in, they would say, hey, we need you on the front. We need you on the front and, you know, you can't kick it out. And then peer pressure will come in. So these children will willingly be pushed into these, you know, fronts. And they would do something that the besiege in Iran used to do back in the 80s in the Iran-Iraq war, which was they would throw the children as the first wave. It's like a human wave of children. They would put them there. You know, the opposite army, there's a high possibility when they see like little kids that are four foot eight coming in with guns might think twice before they try to attack. And that confusion in itself is part of their tactics. And you know, they have told their children's blood for cheap and it is very, very sad. Now this is why most of the prisoners of war that tend to fall into the officially eminent government's hands are these children because of the fact that they are the first way in the front. So they are captured if not killed. And then after they are captured, they are put into the rehabilitation, which is run by the KSA relief. And they've been doing a good job, you know, doing that. And if you go see the interviews they do with these children, these are kids. They are babies. They're 12 years old, 30 years old. They don't know what they're doing. And it's disgusting that it's not just one case, two case. It is the system. The system starts with children in the front, big waves of children, and many have died, by the way. So this is what we're facing right now from this through the militia.